Creative chair at art show Southwest Visual Arts University

Sean Wells via iPhone

“Nice” packaging design at my local pharmacy

Sean Wells via iPhone

Grandma B’s cabinet

This cabinet has been in my husband’s family for years. Grandma B used this cabinet to house her canned goods in her Las Cruces home up until she moved to Albuquerque. When my husband and I moved into our Phoenix apartment we had a very small kitchen with limited storage space. My mother-in-law understood our need for additional storage space and offered us Grandma B’s cabinet. Over the years this cabinet has been moved numerous times and endured a decent amount of wear and tear. It was time to give Grandma B’s cabinet a fresh coat of paint. I anticipated it would take some time but didn’t expect that it would take me months to complete.
~ Beth

Get A Handle On Things

Spotted at Home Depot (top row)–gorgeous undulating chrome handles. These remind me of watching the blob of mercury roll around after the thermometer broke (and before I knew it was deadly stuff). This would be a fun accent on asimple dresser. A bit on the pricey side at $5.95 for the large one on the left (measuring about 2″x6″), but maybe if there were just two drawers…

Sean Wells via iPhone

butterflies in my kitchen

Things have settled down since the holiday season and I’m ready to tackle projects that have been on hold since October. One project that has been on my “to do” list is to paint my kitchen counter stools to create a visually cohesive look within the space. While my boys were in school I decided to haul the stools outside to give them a good sand down with my nifty Black & Decker mouse.

Committing to a paint color can be difficult at times but for this project I knew that I wanted my counter stools to match the gray countertops & black appliances in my kitchen. I applied several layers of Rustoleum Painter’s Touch Ultra Cover Gray Primer to the legs and allowed an hour to dry. When the primer had adequate time to dry I applied two layers of Rustoleum’s Dark Gray Gloss Ultra Cover and let it sit over night.

The following morning Mr. Polo gave me the “okay” to proceed to the next step.

Several layers of black Behr interior satin enamel “oops paint”, purchased from Home Depot, were applied on the seat edges.

Using a dinner plate as a template I traced an outline onto the backside of my favorite decorative paper and carefully trimmed along my pencil line. Using a foam brush, I applied a layer of Mod Podge to the stool and the backside of my paper and carefully positioned the paper onto the seat. Working from the center I used the edge of an expired Starbuck's gift card to eliminate any air bubbles.

Add three layers of Minwax ploycrylic protective finish to the counter stool, sanding lightly between each coat, and now l have three beautiful stools that match my kitchen perfectly.

Beth

I came across Holly Baker’s blog and am amazed with her furniture transformations. Great work Holly!

I’m feeling inspired to get started on a new project (sorry for putting you on hold narrow lead based paint cabinet).

Is it possible to be in love with a cabinet? Holly featured a cabinet from a local Edmonton photographer by the name of Nathan Walker on today’s Fresh Coat Friday’s post. I love what he did with the cabinet top.

Could this be the answer to our joint table project.
♡ Beth

free color scheme designer

As I was catching up on my blog reading this morning I was introduced to a really useful site for those who love color. My favorite blogger, Ez, recently found this useful site and thought you would appreciate it too.
~Beth

hello world, crafters, artists, designers, and fellow repurposers!

My good friend and fellow Mom, Elizabeth and I have been sharing repurposed furniture projects via email.  We have been exchanging tales of triumph and woe, $5 chairs and failed paint jobs.  We often shared favorite blogs of similar-minded  inspiring refinishers.

As I was working on some e-marketing for a graphics client, I began thinking that we exchanged enough quality information and experience to merit a blog.  But, as busy Mom’s (5 boys between the two of us), we’ll have to keep our format short and sweet.  For now, we’ll aim for before & after pics with summaries of our email exchanges.  If nothing else, it will be a great repository of our creative journey for our own amusement.  But, if our stories enlighten others, too…well, that would just be swell.  We’ve named it “Q Projects” after our fine city’s nickname “Q” (for AlbuQuerque).

We met online when I was giving away a table base on Craigslist.  We struck up a virtual conversation about what I was doing with the top and she was doing with the base.  We found a kindred mind and began sharing more emails about crafting and parenting.  I was shocked (not really) to find we not only shared a passion for repurposing thrift store finds and raising boys, but we  both had 1st generation Asian Moms and both had backgrounds in architecture.  Despite our similar backgrounds, we have much to learn from one another.  Well, the punchline of the story is that neither of us has done anything with our respective parts of the table.  We’ve decided we should reassemble the halved-table.  I expect it will be our first collaborative project!

Enjoy our new blog!